1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for indicating states of electronic devices such as TVs and VCRs, and more particularly, to an operation state of electronic device indication method of and apparatus for making users familiar with the electronic device and allowing the users to see the current state of the electronic device more easily, by indicating operations of characters during a servo control for shifting a state of the electronic device in association with the operation states.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic devices such as TVs and VCRs have various operational states. In the case of a VCR, there are various operational states such as power, play, stop, fast forward (FF) and rewind (REW). If a user performs a key manipulation of a desired state through a remote controller or a key matrix attached on an electronic device, a microcomputer receives and judges the key input. The microcomputer reads OSD (on-screen-display) characters corresponding to the judged key input among OSD characters stored in an OSD IC (integrated circuit) and displays the read characters on a TV monitor for a certain time, to thereby allow a user to see the current state of the electronic device. Here, the OSD IC is usually a VRAM, which stores alphanumeric characters as shown in FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a view showing a conventional structure of a VRAM for indicating the electronic device state, in which alphanumeric characters are stored in a total of 256 addresses from a “0000” address to an “F00F” address. The stored alphanumeric characters are various characters including, for example, numbers of “0” to “9”, alphabetical characters of “A” to “Z” and characters corresponding to other languages, such as for example Korean consonants and vowels, in which one character is assigned to each address.
The microcomputer reads the characters corresponding to the judged operation state among the characters stored in the VRAM of FIG. 1, and displays the read characters on a predetermined position of the display as shown in FIGS. 2A through 2D. The operation state is usually displayed as alphabetical characters. For example, if a user depresses a stop key in order to stop a cassette tape which is being reproduced currently, the microcomputer judges whether there is a key input, and reads corresponding characters from addresses each storing a character of “S,” “T,” “O” and “P” in the VRAM constructed as shown in FIG. 1. The microcomputer combines the read characters and displays on the upper-left portion of the display a word “STOP” indicating that a current operation state is to stop the tape run as shown in FIG. 2A. The operation states such as fast forward (FF), rewind (REW) and play shown in FIGS. 2B through 2D are displayed as OSD characters on the display through the same procedure.
However, the current operation states are displayed as OSD characters in the existing electronic device, which is monotonous to the user. Also, in the case of children or old persons who do not read characters, the current operation states are not recognized.